Eastern European Thieves Fingered in Previously Disclosed SEC Hack

Nov. 22, 2017 11:04 a.m. ET

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Nov. 22, 2017 11:04 a.m. ET

Eastern European criminals are likely to blame for the 2016 hack of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s corporate-filing database, Bloomberg reports, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.

Intruders may have had access to private information about companies for months, Bloomberg says, citing an unnamed source. There’s also reason to believe the attack was part of a broader plan to infiltrate other government agencies or data maintained by private companies, according to Bloomberg’s reporting.

The SEC first disclosed the breach in September, but has released only minimal details related to the incident. The agency did say that the vulnerability that left the system open to attack was fixed quickly, and that hackers had used it to obtain nonpublic information.

Edgar is a large repository where firms provide investors information such as their earnings and top executives’ share sales. The part of the database that was hacked contained information that was never intended to be released publicly, Bloomberg writes.

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